This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: Reuters
Jan 7, 2007
Plans to export a version of France's most famous museum, the Louvre, to a resort in the oil-rich city of Abu Dhabi have sparked accusations the government is sacrificing cultural standards for profit.
The plan, backed by the Ministry of Culture, is part of a drive by the United Arab Emirates to create a luxury tourist destination and the contract to bring the Louvre to the Gulf is reported by French newspapers to be worth over 500 million euros ($655.2 million).
But th
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Jan 7, 2007
The hand of history in Eastern Europe continues to reach from the communist past - most dramatically in Sunday's resignation of Stanislaw Wielgus, Archbishop of Warsaw, a half hour before his inauguration as the central figure in the powerful Polish Catholic Church.
Mr. Wielgus, who for weeks denied working for the hated communist secret service, stepped down after evidence against him grew too extensive, outstripping even what many church colleagues assumed: Over 20 years, Wielgus
Source: Chicago Tribune
Jan 7, 2007
- As he seeks support for an escalating war in Iraq, President Bush is reaching forward for a place in history with hope that he will be recognized as a leader who confronted "the ideological struggle of the 21st Century," a conflict between freedom and terrorism.
And, as he contends with growing opposition to the war at home and in Congress, Bush is reaching back to the 20th Century for a parallel with his struggle today. The president has found his precedent in a leader
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 7, 2007
In its day it won two grands prix and reached speeds that would not be surpassed for decades. Now a racer conceived as a symbol of Nazi domination is about to set a new record, as the world's most expensive car.
The 15ft 1939 Auto Union D-type is expected to fetch about £6 million when it goes under the hammer at Christie's in Paris, surpassing the record £5.5 million paid for a 1931 Bugatti Royale at the Royal Albert Hall 20 years ago.
Its arrival in the auction room is th
Source: Observer (UK)
Jan 7, 2007
Millions of birds and animals were slaughtered in England and Wales under a Tudor law which is now being blamed for bringing many native species close to extinction.
While environmental change is generally held responsible for the damage to British wildlife, new research has revealed that the Tudors were actually responsible for reducing many native creatures to a critically endangered level. Species ranging from hedgehogs and water voles to choughs and dippers were systematically
Source: Independent (UK)
Jan 7, 2007
It was the first and most extreme ecological disaster. Easter Island, in the south Pacific, once lush with subtropical broadleaf forest, was left barren and vast seabird colonies were destroyed after the arrival of man.
But now there is new evidence that human beings may not have been responsible for the destruction after all. Although Easter Island has long been held to be the most important example of a traditional society destroying itself, it appears that the real culprits wer
Source: LAT
Jan 7, 2007
Nearly two years ago, John Evans did something no U.S. ambassador to Armenia before him had done: He used the word "genocide" — in public — to describe the deaths of about 1.2 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
It has long been a sore point with Armenian Americans that the U.S. government does not refer to the killings that began in 1915 as genocide, and Evans' use of the word did not signal a change in that policy. It did set off a slow-boiling controversy t
Source: NYT
Jan 7, 2007
AS university students clashed with the police in this country last May, attention focused not just on their demands to hold elections without government meddling but also on the names of the two leaders organizing the protests: Nixon Moreno and Stalin González.
Many Venezuelans had a good laugh at the names and went on with their business. What’s so odd, after all, about the occasional Nixon or Stalin in a nation where bestowing bizarre names on newborns has become a whimsically co
Source: NYT
Jan 7, 2007
THE Ceausescus of Romania were dragged to their executions on Christmas Day 1989 with Nicolae singing “The Internationale” and Elena alternately directing her captors to hell and snapping at them, “I was like a mother to you.”
Or so go accounts by some of the executioners. Videotape shown on Romanian television in the aftermath records scenes from a farcical tribunal but stops as the couple are led away after they’re condemned, picking up again only after the deed is done, the bulle
Source: LAT
Jan 6, 2007
THE National Geographic Society hailed it as one of the most significant archeological discoveries of our time, a 1,700-year-old text that portrayed Judas Iscariot as a hero, not a villain, for betraying Jesus.
The portrayal of Judas as a favored apostle who handed Jesus over to the Romans at his master's request made National Geographic's publication of "The Gospel of Judas" — and the companion TV documentary — a worldwide media event.
When the gospel was rel
Source: Times Online (UK)
Jan 6, 2007
BERLIN -- There can be few marriages quite as strange or as burdened by history as that of the German politician Vera Lengsfeld and her former husband, who spied on her for the East German secret police. “I have forgiven him,” the 54-year-old former dissident said. But she made it clear that personal forgiveness was as complex as the uneasy unification of Germany.
This, after all, was no conventional marital betrayal — no fling with a neighbour or office romance. Every halfway poli
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jan 6, 2007
One of Rome's most famous landmarks, the Fountain of the Four Rivers in Piazza Navona, is to have emergency repairs after centuries of erosion by acid rain, limescale and pigeon droppings.
"We had to act immediately or face a red alert," said Annamaria Pandolfi, the head of an 18-man team that aims to restore Gian Lorenzo Bernini's largest outdoor sculpture to its proper glory.
Giant figures representing the world's four great rivers, the Plate, the Nile, the
Source: AP
Jan 6, 2007
Gun fragments, photos, combat plans and mountain hideouts. These are the latest tourist attractions offered in the formerly war-torn central American republic of El Salvador.
The country has been at peace since 1992, but the 12-year civil war left 76,000 dead, thousands injured and a violent legacy that some tourists find fascinating.
For a fee, former guerrillas will take visitors on tours of former battlefields or mountain hideouts, while museums display war memorabi
Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Jan 5, 2007
The Fort Pitt Preservation Society has floated an "alternative plan" aimed at preserving a big portion of the historic Music Bastion wall that would be buried by the ongoing $35 million state park renovation project.
The plan, unveiled at a morning news conference yesterday at the Hilton Pittsburgh hotel across the street from the 18-acre park, would preserve more than two-thirds of the moat and wall in its current configuration except for a 100-to-150-foot section at the
Source: Coventry Telegraph
Jan 5, 2007
CAMPAIGNERS against a planned £2 million bridge in Stratford say the money should be spent on the urgent restoration of the church where Shakespeare is buried.
An appeal to raise up to £3.25 million to repair the crumbling Holy Trinity Church has been launched by the Friends of Shakespeare Church.
Campaign group Stratford Voice say there is no need for the cycle bridge across the river Avon and say it will spoil the beauty spot.
They say the cash should ins
Source: Guardian
Jan 5, 2007
MIAMI -- Hundreds of rural communities that were purged from Georgia's official state map have won back their identities after a "peasants' revolt".
Residents of hamlets and villages with names such as Hopeulikit, Po Biddy Crossroads, Roosterville and Bill Arp were outraged when the state's transport department announced it was "decluttering" its map for its next reprinting this summer.
But in a victory for community activism, transport officials ha
Source: Guardian
Jan 5, 2007
LIMA, Peru -- It was a cruel, bloody and terrifying era. Rebels slaughtered villagers in the mountains and hung dogs from power lines, their carcasses daubed with Maoist slogans. The state responded with a Machiavellian mix of assassination, bribery and intrigue which brought down the rebel leader but also triggered the fall of the president.
Some call that period in Peru's history a successful counter-insurgency. Others call it a cautionary tale about the cost to democracy of figh
Source: Independent (UK)
Jan 5, 2007
He hardly seems the obvious candidate for Catholic approval, but the Irish author who was once a byword for decadent behaviour is quoted in a new book by a Roman priest as an example to 21st-century Christians.
Source: PR Newswire
Jan 5, 2007
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) has selected Fort Smith, Arkansas, as the host city for the Agency's new museum. Director John F. Clark made the announcement today after receiving recommendations from a 10-person museum committee that has been studying the issue for the past two years.
Fort Smith, located in the western part of the state, was chosen as the future home for the new museum over the other finalist city, Staunton, Virginia. "This was a tough decision, as w
Source: Independent (UK)
Jan 5, 2007
Spain's bishops are alarmed by ambitious plans to recreate the city of Cordoba - once the heart of the ancient Islamic kingdom of al-Andalus - as a pilgrimage site for Muslims throughout Europe.
Plans include the construction of a half-size replica of Cordoba's eighth century great mosque, according to the head of Cordoba's Muslim Association. Funds for the project are being sought from the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, and Muslim organisations in Morocco and
